Filmmaker set to bring Dublin wartime documentary to Sale

A scene from A Terrible Beauty, which centres on the Easter Rising of 1916

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An Irish filmmaker has focused on the Easter Rising of 1916 for his debut feature documentary, which he will screen in Sale later this month.

Keith Farrell will show A Terrible Beauty, at Sale Waterside on Monday, June 15, from 7.30pm as part of the Sale Arts Festival.

Keith - who is originally from Dublin but is now based in Sale - hopes his film offers a fresh approach to the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin.

The film tells the story of an Irish volunteer, a British soldier and an innocent civilian caught up in the fighting and centres on the battles of Mount Street and North King Street, which ended in the massacre of fifteen young men and boys.

Directing the action

Keith - who previously worked on documentaries at Granada TV - has used both archive footage, dramatic reconstructions and eyewitness accounts to tell previously unheard stories from that fateful week.

He said: “A Terrible Beauty is a unique film which does not sit comfortably with the traditional, lionised imagery of the 1916 Easter Rebellion.

“This is the first film to tell the story from both the Irish and British perspectives.

"The first-hand accounts of the ‘ordinary’ participants - British soldiers, Irish volunteers and citizens of Dublin - caught up in the fighting, offer a fresh perspective on these key events and challenge some traditional views of what took place.”

A soldier opens fire

The film has been screened across the UK, Ireland, the United States and even as far afield as Hong Kong.

But moviegoers will get the chance to speak to the director during a question and answer session after the screening in Sale.

A Terrible Beauty tells the story of the Second Battalion of the Notts and Derbyshire Regiment - better known as 'the Sherwood Foresters' - who were the last of the Great War volunteers, citizen soldiers who joined up to fight in the trenches of France and Belgium.

When they arrived in Dublin on April 26, 1916, they faced well-trained fighters in heavily barricaded houses.

A tense scene as the horror unfolds

The 2,000 Foresters who marched up leafy Northumberland Road were opposed by just 17 Irish volunteers, led by Lt. Michael Malone during a six-hour battle.

Within hours of arriving in Dublin 220 of the Sherwood Foresters lay dead, wounded or dying.